Robert Hoe

Robert Howe III (March 10, 1839, in New York - September 22, 1909, London) was an American businessman and manufacturer of printing equipment. He succeeded Richard March Howe as head of R. Hoe & Company, which continued to dominate the printing press industry. He was one of the organizers and first president of the Grolier Club, a well-known New York organization for the promotion of bookmaking as an art. Ho was an extensive collector of rare books and manuscripts, as well as silver, miniatures and other objects of art, his collections at the time of his death were estimated at several million dollars. The catalogs of his library were unique and valuable from both a printing and bibliographic point of view. His collection was auctioned in 1911 and 1912, and almost half went to Henry E. Huntington, including the Gutenberg Bible. After Ho's death, Mrs. Brown of Lexington, Kentucky, the daughter of his manager, sued Ho's property for $ 250,000 in his home in Brunswick Square, London, claiming he promised her a large sum of money before his death. She lived in London at the same address as Ho, and two maids confirmed in court that they had a close relationship. Mrs. Brown's ex-husband also claimed that Ho had paid him $ 20,000 in compensation for the claim of alienation. The case was ultimately settled out of court.